


Minute Maid: Light on Calories. Loaded with Taste

by mychemicalliteratureclub



Category: GINGER SNAPS!!, Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: i'll add tags but this lots of effort now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:53:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21847003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mychemicalliteratureclub/pseuds/mychemicalliteratureclub
Summary: Unwarranted extensions to the 1986 Labyrinth universe for very little reason. Mallaidh Anne is sort of a witch. Cooper is sort of banished. Assuming a whole lot of stuff. Don't want to spoil anything.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE: 

In the woods that covered the hills around the homestead of Kiriga Farm, the rain was pouring down. From grey branches, down trunks of maple, ash and beech, it dripped and drizzled. Pattering loosely over the muddying masses of dead brown leaves that carpeted the forest floor, it sank under the leaf litter in trickles, that joined together in streams, flowing down the hillside to where they welled up in lake-sized puddles whose fractured surfaces, broken by incessant ripples, were as slate-grey as the woolly clouds that hulked above them.  
Mallaidh-Anne's socks inside her boots were sopping wet, and squelched between her toes with each footstep she took up the slippery icline. She'd a tattered sheaf of papers tucked away beneath her raincoat, gripped tight with her harm to shield it from the rain; the script for a play that she was due to perform the following fortnight. She'd gone into the woods hours earlier, seeking quiet in which to rehearse, and, wrapped up in her recital, had paid no attention to the cloudbank that slowly obscured the horizon, until her attention had been rudely drawn by the breaking of the storm, which posed an imminent threat not only to the sole copy of her annotated script, but to her eyeliner, fragile health, and now rapidly deteriorating mood.  
"I better not get fucking pneumonia again," she muttered, stumbling through the dark trees in what had five minutes earlier felt like approximately the right direction, "that would be just what I fucking need right now." Reaching the top of the slope, she squinted through the rain. "Hope I'm not fucking lost." She wiped the streaming moisture from her face with a free hand, and squinted around, trying to make out any semblance of shape through wet night. Happily, her eye was caught by the yellow light of the farmstead, through a copse of trees. "Thank fuck," she whispered. Feeling herself cheer up visibly at the distant sight of the warm windows, she set off walking through the puddly, stubble-filled fields back home. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nyup

CHAPTER TWO

What awaited Mallaidh-Anne back home, however, was a less than warm welcoming. Immediately upon slamming the creaking screen door, the sound of her seventeen-year-old brother, Jonathan-Cooper's voice rang out from the sunroom.  


"Eww, Mallaidh-Anne's back!" She heard the sound of game music being cut off. A moment later, Cooper appeared in the corridor, a bag of corn chips grasped in his hand. "Hey Mallaidh?"  


"Hey what?"  


"You're babysitting me tonight. Mum says."  


Mallaidh Anne frowned. "Are you serious? I can't babysit you! I've got my own stuff to do!" she aggressively pulled off a wet sock. "Where's Mum?"  


"Oh, she went out already, with Dean. Maybe you shouldn't spend so long in the woods, being a witch," he smirked, "want a corn chip?"  
Mallaidh Anne glared at him. He sniggered, and took a handful. "Waffn'd off'ing," he managed to snigger around the mouthful.  


"You know if I was actually a witch, Cooper, you'd be so fucking dead. You'd be off in like, fucking Mordor of something before you could blink twice. You'd be a slave to the orcs, of a sacrifice to the fae, or-- Hey!"  
Cooper had snatched the play up from where Mallaidh Anne had put it down on the hall table.  


"Ooh, still a hopeless drama kid, huh?" he said, flipping through the soggy stapled pages.  


"Give that back!"  


Cooper burped. "No." he stepped back down the corridor. "Don't step on the carpet, Mallaidh-Anne, you're dripping on everything!" His eye was caught by a line, and he flipped back a page. "Wait, a kissing scene? Mallaidh, are you playing a lesbian?"  


"Cooper..." Mallaidh Anne was walking towards him, dripping on the carpet.  


"Kinda gay, huh? If you ask me."  


"Cooper, I will strangle you."  


"Okay, okay, whatever. Big deal." He dropped the pages on the floor, and took a nonchalant chip. "Dinner's in the kitchen, and you've gotta chop some more wood for the fire."  


"Says who?"  


"Says mum. Get moving, peasant." Chuckling corn chips, he turned and disappeared up the stairs. 

Mallaidh Anne sighed, and ran a hand through her tangled hair. What cruel fate had assigned her such an unmitigated asshole of a brother? Irately, she snatched the play from the carpet, folded it, and tucked it inside her coat, which was hanging from the rack next to the door. She'd have to be a bit more careful with it in future - careful not to let fucking Cooper get at it again. Her feet were still wet as she put them back in her watery boots, but that couldn't be helped. There was wood to chop, and then after that, hopefully something good for dinner.  


Twenty minutes later, hatchet in one hand, a stack of splintered logs in the other, Mallaidh Anne shouldered the door open, and stepped out of her boots. She stacked the wood by the crackling fireplace, and made her way into the kitchen. There was a note on the countertop in her mother's handwriting.  


M.A-  


_Going out this evening with Dean. Back by 12. Look after your brother. Dinner's minestrone, and  
there are brownies in the fridge for sweet. XOXO, Your Mother._

Mallaidh Anne was still a little pissed that she'd been left to look after Cooper, with no regard to what she might have wanted to do with the evening, but whatever. There was soup. She ladled herself a bowl from the cast-iron pot on the stove, added a dollop of sour cream, grabbed a slice of bread from the breadbin, and sat herself down at the table to eat. The minestrone had a rich, gravy-stock base, accented by the earthy taste of pasta and smoked ham, and sweetened by the boiled-but-still-crunchy tomatoes, carrot and celery. As she ate, Mallaidh Anne scrolled through her notifications on the thoroughly cracked screen of her phone. Her good mood began to return as she sent off texts to her friends, chuckled at a comment on one of her Youtube videos, and wrote another Tumblr post deriding London and its inhabitants, while her feet dried, propped up on a chair under the table. By the time she'd finished her soup, washed the bowl, and opened the fridge, she was even smiling a little. And then she stopped.


	3. CHapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> brownies are eaten (SHOCK HORROR)

CHAPTER THREE

  
"Cooper! Where are the brownies?"

  
"In the fridge? I though you could read, Mallaidh," Cooper called down from upstairs. 

  
"Cooper!" The sound of his footsteps pattered down the stairs, and he appeared at the kitchen doorway. 

"Do you need me to read Mum's note for you, Mallaidh-Anne?"

"Cooper, where are the brownies?"

"Man, I don't know." He was holding something behind his back. "Oh... Wait, what a surprise! Here's one!"

"Can you give me the brownie that was supposed to be left for me, Cooper?"

"Yeah, sure," he offered sarcastically, before sliding the brownie in its entirety into his mouth. "Mnnf mnononff mnnn!" he managed, grinning nastily around the masticated lump of chocolate.   
Mallaidh stayed silent for a moment, breathing hard, before she spoke. 

"Jonathan Cooper, you're a fucking pig. I hate you."

"Aww, don't say that."

"I've had a really shitty day, and you're being really fucking annoying."

"Maybe if you hadn't taken so long chopping wood, there would have been brownies left over," he suggested. 

"Go upstairs. Go away, now, or I might actually murder you." The look in her eyes was so serious that Cooper, fighting his innate pig-headedness, managed to follow her advice. 

Once he was gone, Mallaidh sat back down at the table, and let her face down into her hands. She was on the verge of considering tears, but more than that, she was angry. At Mum, at Cooper, at the goddamn world. Mad angry, not upset angry. If only she had been a witch. If only she could actually send Cooper away to the fae. No, to the goblins. He'd suit them better. She turned her head, and stared out through the kitchen window at the blurring lines of rain that masked the solemn Appalachian mountainscape. In the distance, a forked flicker of blue lightning momentarily illuminated the tops of the woods. A line from Hamlet floated through her mind:

_Now is the very witching hour of night_   
_When churchyards yawn, and Hell itself breathes forth_   
_Contagion to this world._

Her voice a low, rasping whisper, Mallaidh murmured the next lines to herself.   
"Now could I drink hot blood, and do  
Such bitter deeds as the day would quake to look upon."

Something that was not entirely a smile spread over her face. Rising from the table, she walked over to the stairs. Black, formless shadows seemed to flicker in the vaulted corners of the stairwell. As she climbed, she might almost have discerned the sound of little voices, over the distant patter of rain on the eaves, though it was impossible to tell whether they were above of below her, or even inside the house at all. She reached the head of the stairs. The air was colder up here. 

"Goblin King," she whispered, slowly. A floorboard creaked. No, It didn't seem quite right. "I wish..." Yess, that was it. She began again, with a firmer voice. At the end of the corridor, yellow light leaked under the door, behind which, somewhere, was Cooper. "I wish... that the goblins would come and take you away. Right. Now." Her voice rang slow and powerful in the empty corridor. Stood still, arms trembling, she waited. Nothing was happening. 

Until suddenly, as if on cue, the small voices in the background fell absolutely silent. A terrible tiredness welled up to drown her, and she slumped against the wall, her eyes sliding closed. Yet before they shut, she had time to note something. The yellow band of light, beneath Cooper's door, had been extinguished. 

Darkness caught her in heavy arms. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the labyrinth bit. jesus why am i writing fic for an 80s movie and a tiny letsplay am i even serious about my career. should i give up and write shrek fluff

CHAPTER FOUR

  
Mallaidh awoke to a man with long, shocking hair, and glamourously tight leggings standing over her. 

"So, the girl awakens," he said. His accent was a heavy, distinctive English one. "Do you know what place this is, Mallaidh-Anne?"

"This is my house?" Mallaidh mumbled, trying to piece together her scattered recollections. She pulled herself to a leaning position against the wall. "Who are you, and what are you fucking doing in my house?".

"Ah, my error," he said, and snapped his gloved fingers. The walls and carpet disappeared, and the two were now on top of a hill, bare and stony. Behind and to the sides now stretched a barren red desert; sand blurred by heatwaves, and littered with rocky outcroppings and scraggly vegetation. To the front, the hill looked out over a massy stone structure: a crumbling, gargantuan maze that seemed to sprawl out over the horizon. "There."   
He looked down at Mallaidh, who was failing to look suitably impressed, having fallen over hard when the wall she was leaning on had dematerialised. "Do you recognise this place, Mallaidh-Anne?"

"I've never seen it before. What are you doing with my medication?" In his hand, the man was holding a plastic zip-lock bag, filled with prescription medicine, as well as a ventilating device. 

"I found these in your bathing room," he informed her, proffering them, "there was a note on the door of the refridgerating device, from which I concluded them to be arcane instruments important for your vital energies. I must comment, however, that this place ought to be familiar to yourself. This is, after all, your second time here."

"Well my memory is pretty fucking bad," conceded Mallaidh, standing up and taking the bag. "But that doesn't mean i have to give a fuck: I'm getting a headache, and you still haven't fucking told me who you are!" she grimaced. A headache was definitely coming on, and the heavy and unexpected sunlight was not helping a jot. 

"You must forgive me. I am Jareth, King of the Goblins." He extended a hand, which Mallaidh ignored. "Do you perhaps remember your brother?"

"Oh, shit." Mallaidh was remembering now. "You took him away? To here?"

"Well, yes, initially. Complications did arise. For you see, Mallaidh-Anne," he snapped his fingers, and she was suddenly seated in an armchair that sprang from the dusty ground, "your brother had already paid us a visit." He put his hands on his hips, and paced slowly over the ground, as if to relieve some great frustration. "Two visits, in very fact," he continued. "Your brother does not appear to be popular in your family."

"Can you stop being fucking cryptic, and tell me what you actually fucking want?"

"The very second that you cease these interruptions, Mallaidh Anne, telling you what I fucking want will be first on my list of priorities." The Goblin King sighed. He stopped pacing, and, pulling a crystal ball out of seemingly nowhere, began flicking it from side to side over his hand. "Leaving to the side the fact that patience is a virtue to be prized, the facts are these: this kingdom of goblins," he gestured with his arm to the vast maze, "is formed entirely from unwanted humans. Discarded by the world that knew not how to value them, this place takes them in with welcoming arms, and turns them - one might say betters them - into the being they should be: freed from inhibitions, from boundaries; loved for who they truly are." He paused. "Cooper is an exception. A rarity. A young child yourself, you wished him here as a mere infant. You were given the chance to take him back. You declined, and apparently, forgot the incident entirely. Even then, Cooper was different from the other children I had nurtured. In this place of decayed boundaries, he had fewer. He seemed to know no fear, no mercy. After a week, even the cavelings began to feel uneasy. It was breaking a custom, but I sent him back."

"Huh. We didn't notice Coop missing for an entire week? Seems fishy."

"Time flows differently here," said the Goblin King mysteriously. "It would have been more around three days in your realm."

"Yeah," Mallaidh Anne concurred. "Sounds a little more realistic."

"Yet - "

"Also," she interrupted. "I hate to burst your bubble, but it doesn't sound as though you know hot to 'nurture' children very well. No younger sibling possesses fear or mercy. It's just how they work."

Jareth ignored her. "Yet, a mere year later," he continued, "the child appeared again. This time sent by your other sibling."

"Of whom there are many."

"The one with the red hair. Younger than you. Quick fingers, nasty eyes."

"Ah, you mean Brianna. Why'd she send Coop over here?"

"That is beside the point." The King sniffed. "Yet I remember it having issue with a 'board game'. Cheating another at dice is apparently a matter of some.. gravity, in your culture."

"Oh-my-god," interjected Mallaidh Anne, "I remember that game. It was Monopoly, and I went to get snacks, and when I came back Cooper had disappeared, and Brie told me that he'd left her all his property." The Goblin King looked irritated. "Okay, sorry. Finish your story. What'd he do?".

Stroking the crystal ball, he stared bitterly off over the horizon.   
"The Child Cooper, barely in his sixth year, gained - I know not through what artifice - the allegiance of the fairies that plague my city. Within two days, he'd attempted to seize my throne, and it was only through miraculous luck that I was able to banish him again."

"I mean, that's pretty cool of Cooper."

"It isn't"

"Is too."

"Silence," he hissed imperiously. "As I was telling you, he was banished again - and yet I couldn't be certain that I would not be threatened again. I took precautions."

"You cursed him with a location-activated banishment, and disguised it by making the runes out of freckles?"

"One seems to know a lot about goblin curses."

"You pick stuff like that up on the internet."

Jareth raised an eyebrow. "Yes, the Inter-Net." he said knowingly. "Quite. But this is all to say, he isn't here."

"What do you mean? You've sent him back home? You brought me here for nothing?"

"No. I couldn't do that a third time, Sar -- Mallaidh Anne. Even goblins have some rules. I sent him to the next Labyrinth over."

"There's more than one?" 

"But of course. The multiverse is a sprawling, big, big place. There must be at least ten Labyrinths I take in misfit children, which you'd think would make mine one of the larger, considering your society, but no such luck. I've sent Cooper to my older sister's Labyrinth, which I thought was very fitting. It is probably the largest, which will make him getting out of it nice and difficult."  
"And what's your sister's... theme?"

"She takes in petty people. It's quite scary.. even for me, how many of them there appear to be."

"And any way I can actually get there? I'm warning you that if you make it too hard for me, or if its anything to do with quantum physics, I am literally going to leave Cooper with the petty people forever. I know about sisterly responsibility, but I also have limits, Jarry."

Jareth grimaced. "I like your spirit, Mallaidh Anne, but it will surely get you killed if you continue in in that vein where you're going. Luckily for your sisterly reponsibility, my sister's Labyrinth is for the most part, located in your realm. I believe she calls it... London"


End file.
